A test of the measurement equivalence of the revised Job Diagnostic Survey: Past problems and current solutions.

The measurement equivalence ofthe revised Job Diagnostic Survey (JDS) was studied across am-ples from five worker populations. Samples inc uded workers at a printing plant, engineers, nurses and nurses ' aides, dairy employees, and part-time workers. Data were analyzed according to Jgre-skog's model for simultaneous factor analysis in several populations (SlFASP), revealing the five fac-tors contained inHackman and Oldham's theory of job characteristics. A sixth factor ls appeared that apparently resulted from the two different formats used on the instrument. When the data from each group were analyzed separately b principal axes factor analysis, three-, four-, and five-factor solutions appeared. To explain these inconsistencies, a Monte Carlo simulation was conducted. Ma-trices representing the a priori JDS factor loadings and a hypothetical, lengthened JDS with twice the number of items per factor were used in the simulation with three sample sizes (Ns = 75, 150, and 900). Results suggested that for scales like the JDS, which has only a few items per factor, sample sizes larger than those typically recommended are needed to consistently recover th true underlying structure. The simulation results upport our conclusions that the SIFASP solution is preferable to the principal axes olution and that he JDS provides measurement quivalence across worker popu-lations.